The 4 Major Tenets of Kubernetes Security

In a previous article, we learned about the threats to a Kubernetes deployment that may result in a multitude of compromises and undesirable scenarios. With these threat models in mind, we can now explore Kubernetes security along four major tenets:

authentication and authorization

resource isolation

hardening and network security

logging and auditing.

We look at security from the perspective of containers, Kubernetes deployment itself and network security. Such a holistic approach is needed to ensure that containers are deployed securely and that the attack surface is minimized. The best practices that arise from each of the above tenets apply to any Kubernetes deployment, whether you’re self-hosting a cluster or employing a managed service.